I am a freelance writer with a focus on the Ballard neighborhood. I love connecting what is happening in the community with my own life. I was born to be at large.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..

Veteran on the Thoroughfare

“I should sell lemonade on days like this,” the man called out to us, “I’d make a fortune.”

He’s an older man who just appeared a few weeks ago sitting in a lightweight lawn chair positioned precisely at the point where the front walk of a house on NW 34th Street meets the sidewalk in a T.

He has greeted us before, usually as we ascend on the home leg of our Golden Gardens walks, usually with just a nod and “nice day.” But sitting out in the sun on Memorial Day, he didn’t just greet us – he hailed us, cane planted between his feet. Once we’d stopped in front of his chair, he didn’t just converse with us – he regaled us with stories. As soon as we had fully stopped walking he raised himself to standing, with much more vigor than I’d expected, and told us a little about his life so far.

His wife died this last January and his children wanted him to go to a retirement home, but he wouldn’t have it. Then his buddy in Seattle, children grown, twice divorced, invited him to live with him. His friend’s home on 34th NW doesn’t have a front porch, so there he is at the end of the walk, looking for company. The other north-south streets west of 32nd aren’t through streets so foot and dog-walking traffic is plentiful. He sits right along the walking thoroughfare, joking about lemonade.

He moved quickly between topics so that there were no breaks in which we could wish him well and resume our walk. He told us that he was eight-five years old and had flown B-32’s in World War II, someplace we probably hadn’t heard of…the Guadalcanal? Said that he was Irish and his mothers’ prayers must have kept him alive. His plane was shot down and out of ten men; only four of them survived. Messed up his back and all – but he lived. He took off the cap and touched the purple band– “that’s my purple heart,” he said. Then looked again at the hat and said, “oops, wrong hat.”

I asked him if he attended reunions. My dad’s best friend always attended annual reunions, although it became depressing with so many of his fellow bombardiers dying each year. This man told me no, he never had. Family was too important. Got out of the army and went right to work, wanted to be able to afford a house. Said that if anyone so much as tried to run his machine at the GE plant that it would be out of commission for days so his manager asked him to work every hour he was willing. Worked 72-78 hours per week and was able to put aside $5,200 including overtime and buy a house for his family – houses were just $12,000 or so back then he said.

He didn’t tell us that much about how he came to live with this buddy in Seattle, other than a story that involved the end of the man’s first marriage in which he had traveled with him and his two young children in a camper bus, cooking out along the way as he helped them relocate to the west. How those kids are grown but they still talk about that trip twenty years ago. He returned to the topic of World War II and told us that there’s one of the old planes like he flew in the war – said there’s just one left and it’s in Seattle. Thinks it’s down at what he called “that Boering Field.”

Then he told us about selling his house in Nevada and the perils of casinos, with Atlantic City worse than Vegas, but it sounded like he’d had his share of winning as he listed some bigger pay-outs. “You won’t need to sell that lemonade to make a fortune,” I said, and took a step away. Other walkers were approaching, perhaps he noticed this and was willing to throw us back and try casting another line for a more interesting catch. “I’ve had some luck,” he agreed, and he gave a farewell nod as we moved to finish our walk, to return to gardening and family and soccer and the unexpected medical emergency and ogling the hideous color of the paint job next door. In short to finish our Memorial Day holiday without regard for the reason for the holiday, leaving the veteran alone on his lawn chair hoping for a chat.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..